T U T O R I A L

The »assign«-button

· Clicking on this button and on an object, will assign the currently selected texture to the object (or the selection, if the »selection«-switch is activated).


The »rotate«-, »scale«- and »translate«-buttons

· You already know these commands from the »modify«- menu. This time, not the object, but its texture can be altered in its size and position. To give you an example how texture-transformations look like, we will handle this topic detailed.

A - Rotation: due to its definition textures often have certain patterns. To vary these patterns you can use the texture-rotation.

· For example: a stone-colored object might have red veins from the top to the bottom, interrupting the monotone stone-pigment. If you would like the veins to flow from the left to the right, than you can adapt the original texture- definition by assigning a rotation value unequal to zero (see picture to the left).


B - Scale 2D/3D: scenes in which many objects have the same texture, will soon loose its attractivness, if the textures always look the same.

· To avoid this, you can use the scale-vectors for the X-, Y- and Z-direction of the textures. Values greater than [1.00] will expand the texture-patterns, color-transition and so on. Vice versa, values less than [1.00] will shrink the various color- and pattern-attributes.
C - Translation: One of the best things in varying textures is the translation, because the texture keeps its original properties.

· To understand this, imagine the following: when the tracing- program encounters a textured object, it uses the definition to find the entry-point for the pattern. Now, altering this entry-point via the translation, gives the object a different look, compared to objects that have non-translated textures.

The »reinit«-button (reinitialize)

· This is the emergency-cord, when your texture- transformations have gone berserk! With a click on this control and the respective object, you can reset any transformation of the texture immediately.

Manually altering textures

· So far the above described methods apply only to the mouse. In addition to that, you can alter textures manually as well using the manual-setup-dialog. As with objects, you have 9 fields (»Scale MX« to »Translate MZ«), where you can set the appropriate values (see picture below).

Chapter A/Page 25
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